Chinchilla Community Forums
Chinchillas => General Chat => Topic started by: SuperTaranta on August 19, 2014, 10:01:45 PM
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So I have owned my chin for about a month now. She is adorable, she comes to my hands etc, however I can't feed her, or else she will bit my fingers or any soft part of my hand in deeply and draw blood. If I wear gloves, she will come up smell them and hop into my hands. I make sure to wash my hands and use sanitizer. I honestly don't know what to do, its quite painful and it takes a while for the scars to heal.. she just got the inner side of my thumb and got in so deep she got under my nail (I bled quite a bit). She is young she is about 3 months now, is she biting like this because she is still young? I blow on her every time she bites. But she seems to pull harder.
Any help would be great, as I would personally like to tame her and I feel its working well, just the biting is painful as hell.
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To me this sounds almost like territorial behavior. Maybe she is trying to drive you off because you are in her cage. I had a chinchilla like this and he didn't like to be handled very much either. One thing that worked is every time he would bite or even threaten to I would take him out of the cage and restrain him. I just held him still at my chest, for about 5-10 seconds and put him back. It cured it by demonstrating that aggressive behavior didn't work and even resulted in something he didn't like. At the same time it helped get him more used to being handled and he became more manageable over time. Use gloves if you have to. Once you've learned how to control her head chances of getting bit go way down. He was a very territorial chinchilla but he was older and not socialized from a young age. After he died I got a 3 month old from a breeder. He was kind of rough at first but he grew out of it. He is now safe with children. You can't let your pet get away with that or it will reinforce the behavior. Perhaps someone else has more suggestions.
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Yea, I was figuring it could be because she is really young. I guess I'll stick to the gloves for a little. Like I don't understand her sometimes, if I'm wearing gloves, she won't bite. She won't even bite my arm, when she gets to my elbow, she feels around and kind of starts to try biting, I guess the she feels the sensitive parts are food? Idk Lol. But I did take your advise, one of the things I did yesterday when she bit me was I held her close to me, and she was spazing out trying to escape. So hopefully over time it'll get better.
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That's the first phase of getting a chinchilla hand tamed. One thing you'll notice is she'll go spastic for a few a seconds, relax, and then start up again. With my chinchilla I wouldn't make any movements towards the cage until he was still. There's two parts to that logic. One is that it trained him to get what he wants only when he is still and not struggling. This specifically goes to curb the fighting. The second part of the logic is safety. Chinchillas can injure themselves quite easily and should not be allowed to jump into their cages or flail around partly unsecured. Be very careful to not let him go until he is in a safe place to be let go. Preferably right at floor level.
By holding and releasing your chinchilla like that several times a day (whether or not he acts aggressive but definitely every time she threatens to bite) you will see much improvement after a few days especially with one that young but it can take 2-3 months before he is totally used to being handled. It is initially stressful for them so try not to overdo that and make sure to have plenty of other kinds of interaction each day.
My chinchilla I have now will actually jump into my hands sometimes when I open the door because he wants up. It takes a lot of patience but it pays off in the long run.
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wow.
makes me even more head over heels with popsicle.
For some reason, he might be a genius among chins or something, when I bit too hard I said "OUCH" pulled my hand away and stopped playing with him. ... he learnt how to adjust to just light nibbles within 1-2 weeks.
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We're having the same problem at the moment. Our chinchilla is getting into a habit of biting hard so I think I may try this method. Because she was sick a lot a few months ago and the experience traumatised her a bit, we havent been handling her very much these days. Anytime we have tried to hold her she goes crazy much in the same way as described above.
Her floor is currently on the ground but we will be getting her a cage on legs soon so will need to be able to lift her in and out.
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Our chinchilla just hates being held and hides from us now after we have lifted her a few times.
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Sounds like your chinchilla is still pretty wild. If I were in that situation I would keep interacting with her through the cage door and bars and don't pick her up until she is not hiding from you anymore, unless she bites, then you may still want to pick her up.
Try luring her out with paper. My chinchilla really likes paper for some reason maybe yours will too.
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Thanks Gray,
Maybe we will scale back a bit then. We've had her six months so it's a bit sad to think she has not relaxed into the flat yet. She doesn't exactly hide on us but stays in the cage because she knows we may try and lift her if she comes out.
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IMHO, lifting and restraining/cuddling should be the LAST items on the "taming" menu...
ie, start small and work your way up.
Get a new chin used to you being in the general vicinity.
After a day or two, get him used to you speaking to him.
Then offer him a treat. Start off by placing the treat at a neutral distance between you then back off and let him take it. Eventually you get them taking the treat from you.
After a bit, show them the treat, put it on your hands, let him crawl up to take it.
Lie down, put treat on tummy, and let them take the treats from you.
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And, at the end of the day, some chins are just uncomfortable being restrained... they might tolerate it, but they won't enjoy it.
And some chins are apparently scared of heights.